Be Grateful

Count money, man.

Money, man.

Stacked riches.

I'm trying to told him I'm a beast, but...

What's up gang?

Welcome back to another episode of The Grindcast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

And I want to talk about being grateful.

I think, um, man, I don't have the exact quote on me right now, but it was, I think it

was Norman Vincent Peere or Norman Van Peere, said that the greatest sin is the sin of

ingratitude.

And I think, especially right now with elections coming up and all that stuff, man, we have

a lot of exposure on the news about all the things that each side don't do and hasn't

done or won't do, and what the country ain't doing.

And I think there's just a lot of focus, especially right now, but even without the election,

it's just as humans, I think, you know, we tend to focus on the things that we don't

have versus being grateful and appreciative for the things that we do have.

And that's the greatest sin, you know, per se, you know, and Norman Van Peere's opinion.

And so I would have to agree that it's got to be up there.

And I think that, you know, the antidote to depression and negativity is to be grateful.

You know, I heard somebody say before that it's impossible.

That studies show that it's impossible to be grateful and depressed at the same time.

So I think the pill to the depression is looking at all the things that we have to

be grateful for, doing audit in your life of all the things that you have to be grateful

for.

I think, you know, people that are ambitious, which I would put myself in that category

of being ambitious, people that are ambitious tend to look at only what they don't have

a lot.

They look at, man, how do we make this better?

How do I make that better?

How do we, you know, this person or this company is doing that and we're not.

So it creates this tendency of us not being grateful.

And so I think you should be ambitious.

I think we should be ambitious but grateful at the same time of we want to get better.

Being grateful doesn't mean being stagnant.

It doesn't mean, you know, being lazy, being complacent.

It means just, man, I'm looking at all the things that I should have gratitude for.

You know, there's, you know, I heard people say before that there's someone on their

deathbed that would, that's praying to be exactly where you're at right now.

And so are you focusing on that which you don't have or you realize in the perspective of

man, somebody on their deathbed would trade me places in a heartbeat right now.

What do I got that I can be grateful for?

Is it a, do you have children or your children healthy?

Is your parents still around?

Is your health okay?

Is what's going on positive in business?

What has done well for you in your life and all those things?

If we take that perspective, it's going to be a better approach.

And I think now in this day and age, you know, where it's, it's crazy to think that one

day years ago, out of my whole friend group, out of all the people that I was around, I

was the last one.

People could verify this.

I was the last one on social media.

I was anti social media.

People around me encouraged me and I do got to give a shout out to Maurice Claret from

my hometown, Youngstown, Ohio, one of the Ohio State greats.

He talked me into it.

You know, I remember him explaining to me, it's, hey, it's free advertising Simon.

And this is where the future is going to be and you got to get on it.

And so he kind of gave me that nudge to get on social media.

So here, here we are and some of you are probably sick of seeing me and hearing me on social

media.

And so in this social media world, we have the tendency to see everybody's highlights

and don't see everybody's low lights.

I think I saw Dion Sanders, you know, the coach for Colorado say, you know, I'm trying to

develop some of these men's characters, some of the players character off the field because

everybody's telling them how great they are.

Can you imagine when you're watching somebody play sports, you're only seeing two hours

of their best thing that they do all day, right?

So what if people only saw your best two hours of your day?

So we tend to look at on social media, other people's highlight clips and it throws us off

of all the things that we have in our own life to be grateful for.

I'll give you a personal example.

You know, I see young people in my business, young people in our business, on our team that

are ambitious.

And I think so much of social media is great and some of it is, it can get their minds twisted

because they start looking at what these other people are doing.

This person selling widgets and they're making a half a million.

This one selling solar and they made this or this one did that or, you know, whatever it

is.

So maybe I should do that.

Maybe I should do this.

Man, what would I, like I've had people try to point out to me, hey, did you see Patrick

Bet David sold his insurance company for a hundred thousand or 200 or a hundred million

or 200 million, whatever it was.

And I looked at that and you know, I could see if I was younger, how I could have got

my mind jacked up a little bit because as a competitor, as someone that has grown

up in the insurance business outside of college, I feel all things being equal from the same

starting point.

I would give myself, I feel this isn't a lack of respect for what P.B.D. has accomplished.

I love his stuff.

I love his content.

I love his books.

I like a lot of his attitude.

I like his high like clips.

I don't know him as a person.

But what I do know, I like him and I gain a lot of knowledge from the stuff and value

from the stuff that he puts out for people.

All things being equal though, I feel like if we're side by side and we start from scratch,

I feel like I have a good chance of keeping up with them or doing even better building

an insurance company from scratch with the same products, the same situation, the same

systems, the same everything.

But I never find myself being jealous of, he sold his company for a hundred million, 200

million.

I didn't.

I didn't have that exact opportunity to do that.

But I'm grateful for what I do have.

So instead of me pointing out, hey, there's two, three people around the country, whether

it's him or another guy, a soldier, this, that or the insurance business or whatever

it is.

My outlook on that is men is whatever God had a lot of it for those folks.

He had a lot of it for those folks.

And I'm not counting what they got their money.

They weren't never going to pay my family's bills and I was never going to pay theirs.

They don't even know who I am probably.

So it's not in my business, right?

My business is my business.

And I'm grateful for my business.

This is somebody that spent years, not like six months, years on welfare with my mother.

And yeah, I mean, you know, my grandparents pitched in, my mom did her best.

She worked all hours at a night weekends to put me in.

We went to, I went to a decent school.

I went to a Catholic high school, a shout out, youngstown, Ursula.

I had, man, what a, what an eclectic, weird upbringing I had that is so rare.

But I'm grateful to come from where I come from and to make, let's just say, I'll just

say it's seven figures or more, you know, every year.

You're not going to say how many more, but just seven figures, you know, every year for

a long time.

And nothing in me gets mad at other people or, you know, to where I get bitter of man, I

wasted, you know, 17 years with this, with this company or, you know, however long I've

been with the 19 years, you know, with this company and building this business and look

at this guy and look what he did.

And I'm so grateful for what I do have in the life that I have built and the people that

I have impacted that I'm grateful for what God currently has a lot of for me.

And I'm working in the, I'm working daily and weekly with the level of expectation that

I know it's going to be more.

And I believe when the world thinks, when God thinks, when, when, when, when it's my turn,

I think it'll be our turn and we'll get what we got coming to us.

And, and whatever it is, I'm going to be a good steward of it and be grateful and be

better with it than I have been even in the past.

And so don't let what other people are doing in your business or out of your business.

Destroy your motivation for where you're currently at and what you have to be grateful for.

Some of you listening to this, you could look back five years ago and say, man, what

I'm doing right now was only a dream.

I couldn't even imagine doing this.

But how many times are you getting mad and upset about what another person is doing that's

better than you or bigger than you.

If you don't lose that, your all comparison can be the thief of joy.

First time I heard to quote it was comparison is the thief of joy.

But in sports, you got to compare a little bit.

Hey, this person's vertical is bigger than mine or this person's faster or this, you know,

to compete, you do compare.

But if it's hurting you more than it's helping you then you got to be careful.

You got to be able to compartmentalize and only compare and take from the comparison

things that are going to help you and not things that are going to hurt you.

Are you forever going to be in this place of misery and a lack of gratitude by always

comparing yourself to what you don't got and what somebody else does have versus you

being grateful for what you do have and working with what you got to work with in this

current moment.

Because if I could trust you with a little, then I could trust you with a lot.

And if you're ungrateful with a little, usually you don't get a lot.

And so I just want to encourage you that we're all in this boat.

I can look around and see people doing better than me.

I go to big cities, Miami, New York and I see people the same ages me and they can do

things I can't do and I fly on a plane and they fly on a jet.

I've been on some jets.

I fly on a jet sometimes but it's not an everyday thing right now.

I ain't mad at them.

I don't know how they got it.

I don't know what they're doing but I'm grateful for what I got and I'm grinding and

I'm hustling and I'm putting the work in and I'm but don't let you're always going to

be able to find somebody doing something bigger than you better than you and you could

let it motivate you, inspire you or you could cause it to completely get out of your game.

For example, baseball players, I think they make way more money on their contracts and

it's guaranteed than a football player so to speak.

And so for a deli I'm going to say hey, I'm mad, I'm only making five million a year

over here.

I see this guy over here is making 15 million a year guarantee.

I'm going to go play baseball.

Well now all of a sudden you lost your five million, you go play baseball and after a year

you get cut and now you ain't got the five million either because you was trying to go get

the 15 million.

Ambition can bite you in your rear if it's not coming naturally from the right place in a

healthy way.

And so just the message that I'm trying to pound into your head is stay grateful, look

at the ways, look at the things in your life, look at the things in your business that

you have to be proud of yourself, be grateful for where you're at.

Yeah, you can look around, be ambitious, don't be afraid to jump and take a risk and

go do something that's not what I'm saying.

But the message overall is take a look around you and be grateful and don't be so quick

to look at somebody else's highlights and make that other person's highlight make you

feel like you're doing so horrible or so far behind when you have so much to be in a spirit

of gratitude for.

So keep doubling down on your business if it's working for you, if you're rocking, if it's

not, I'm not saying don't be open to doing other things.

I'm just saying in a spirit of pressure and stress and things not going your way, just

pause for a minute and go out there and give some gratitude to things going well in

your world that you got to be thankful for.

Speaking of things to be thankful for, I'm thankful for you guys and the opportunity

that you have allowed us to pour into your life.

And if you know of anybody that we can help with this podcast, would you do me a favor

and share it with people?

Just take a minute.

I know we can get busy, but the only thing you could do to help us help them help us all

is.

to go ahead and take a minute and share a message if you think it's good.

And then for those of you on social media, if you're listening, don't be afraid to give

me a hashtag.

Be grateful and tag me and let me know that you're listening over there.

All right.

I appreciate you guys.

Have a great week and we'll see you next time on the Grandcast.

Let's get it.